ALT: Creating a text-based RPG??

Me and my friend want to create a text-based RPG. We want it to have some graphics (maps, pictures, background, buttons and so on). Can you tell me please what is the best language for this program to be created in? (Knowing that it is for PC).

If you're making an RPG, the key feature you should look for is if the language is object-oriented. Object oriented languages let you define classes, which are essential for the complexity of an RPG. (Example, the flaming sword is a member of the weapon class, and you can use this same class to make many different types of weapons.)

C++, Java, Ruby and Python all come to mind. I know little about Ruby or Python except that they're object-oriented, so I don't want to compare them, but out of C++/Java, Java is the better choice. You can output text and display basic graphics very easily, while with C++ you'll probably need to learn way more to display graphics.

I'd go the scripting language route. (Ruby, python, perl, etc) Way easier to learn, and no compilers to diddle with. If you're going to learn a new language, it might as well be ruby. (so says me anyway...)

thanks guys!!!
We recently discovered a book that is like a tutorial in creating exactly what we are about to. I think it is a big step for those who want to do the same thing. It is called: Games C++ - Programing RPGs with DirectX 2002. You can find it on eMule.
Thanks again!

I will let you know how it goes. I hope I will have the chance to present our finished work.

BY the way, if you're using DirectX (which seems overkill for a text-role player...) you won't have the option porting it to other platforms; if you're going the C++ route, you might want to investigate SDL, which will allow you to develop for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc from the start - if you know C++, it has a very little learning curve, and a lot of 'plug-in' libraries for loading images, loading audio, fonts, etc.

A slightly odd way you could do it (if your aiming for a text adventure / Myst like game) is to use webpages - doing the visual layout and media (movies and sound) rendering with html (and css), the game logic (input handling) with javascript and storering game state (save data) in the link (to bookmark = save game).

Also, please notice that this is a Mac developer forum. Not that we won't help you, just keep in mind that we aren't exactly eating DirectX for breakfast around here. That, and we aren't too keen on piracy, so eMule book piracy isn't really OK around here.

Hi i'm also trying to make a text rpg but i'm trying to learn BlitzBasic so i wanna create the game in Blitz. I have a friend who can draw me some cool stuff for backrounds so i can just scan it. Anyways to the point, I'm looking for a Tutorial to make a sample text rpg in blitz.

Blitz isn't yet available for Mac, so I doubt anybody here will be able to point you to a tutorial - either check out the official Blitz forums where ever they may be located, or ask in the YakYak programming forums - a bunch of Blitz coders congregate there...

Funny, I'm trying to do a text RPG as well (though I'm making myself want to stop by wanting so much overly complex, pointless... stuff) as a first step towards eventually making a classic NES-style RPG!

My intention is to do it with Obj-C and Cocoa and even though it's all text, I might build an interface for it (an output window - which, for such things, I can never get more than one line of text to appear... That is, as separate outputs; and a button for, oh, I dunno, "Action!").

Um. Yeah... As a D&D fan, I figured I'd just take the most basic d20 rules and code them. I have a lot of it in my head as I've been brainstorming some methods/functions, but actually sitting down and programming them is a whole nother beast. Especially when you don't have access to your own computer!!! *sigh*

The big thing for me is figuring out how to work with files for data. I thought I'd just plist files, but I've been unsuccessful in finding decent documentation for working with such files. Reading from them, wiriting (usually updating specific key-value pairs), etc. (Is there an etc?!) O'Reilly's Learning Cocoa with Objective-C 2nd Edition definitely leaves something to be desired in regards to file I/O and plists. I posted in the general Mac programming section about this, but I think people see my screen name and run for the hills.

plist and file input/output is rather simple with cocoa. The built in documentation has a lot of infomation about them. Its pretty simple to just save any data to a file. Just take an array or whatever and write it out to the disk. Look into NSFileManager you can do a google search even if you want =).

also look at:

writeToFile:atomically:
valueForKey:

Im not really sure what kind of data you plan on working with but that should give a little bit more background on the subject of file handling.